FamousLie
Well-Known Member
We want it and we can get it back. Here is how we do it.
I attended the Maricopa Community College District's board meeting on Tuesday night. Usually these meetings are fairly mundane, but I used the public speaking portion to introduce the idea of bringing community college wrestling back. For those who aren't aware, the district recently has dropped football as a sport from the 4 local colleges that offered it, citing that operational costs were too high. This is where wrestling fits in.
As best as I can tell, and this is going off of whatever information I can find, wrestling for the 4 community colleges would cost somewhere between 1/5 and 1/8 what football was costing, and not throwing off Title IX since wrestling takes up far less roster spots than football. There isn't equipment to maintain for wrestling, there isn't an expensive practice facility needed, and you don't need any specialized equipment.
Currently we have 2 college wrestling programs in this state, and between the two there are 14 Arizona kids on the rosters. There are 204 high school wrestling teams in this state, and even if we averaged only 10 kids per roster, that's still 2,040 wrestlers in this state. Offering community college wrestling would open up approximately 120 spots. That's less than 10% of wrestlers in this state.
The other measure that I believe would be an incentive to add wrestling would be not competing in the NJCAA, but rather the CCCAA. This would be done for 2 reasons. It would be much less costly, as the nearest NJCAA school is in Colorado. Wrestling in the CCCAA would also make it a one semester sport, which would be perfect for replacing football, and also cut down on travel costs. Both of those are reasons to consider when bringing wrestling back.
I only had 3 or 4 minutes to speak at the meeting tonight, but I have emailed my district board member, and am hopeful that I can get onto the meeting agenda next month to make a longer presentation with more information regarding geography and costs. Here is what we need now though. We need people to email the board members asking for wrestling to be brought back.
Mr. Laurin Hendrix, Board President: laurin.hendrix@domail.maricopa.edu
Ms. Johanna Haver, johanna.haver@domail.maricopa.edu
Ms. Tracy Livingston, tracy.livingston@domail.maricopa.edu
Ms. Jean McGrath, jean.mcgrath@domail.maricopa.edu
Mr. Dana Saar, dana.saar@domail.maricopa.edu
Dr. Linda Thor, linda.thor@domail.maricopa.edu
The other thing we need is a commitment to help out. I'm not talking about money, though money is good, but I am talking about trying to mitigate the startup costs. I am almost positive that the board or at least somebody on it will put it out there that the startup costs would be too much. This is where the wrestling community comes in. If there is a way to have schools donate old mats they don't use, need or want, or any other equipment that they don't need this would be very helpful. Instead of buying brand new mats for $20,000 why not use a donated or remaindered one from a high school. I would like nothing more than to see brand new mats outfitting community colleges, but we have to look at reality here. If it is going to be an obstacle to whether we get community college wrestling back or not, I don't think using donated equipment should be an obstacle. If we make it less costly up front to bring back wrestling, they can't say no to it very easily.
So if you email the board members, and you are willing to put in time, money, equipment, etc. please let them know and commit to it. If we show them that there is a strong wrestling community that wants this, they will have to listen to us and the financial numbers are on our side. There is no excuse for them to not add wrestling. Now we just have to show them how badly we want it.
If you would like to get in touch with me, just send me a PM on here or send me an email, JILevens@asu.edu and let's work on what we can get together for next month. If I am not included on next month's agenda, then what we can do is organize 10 or so people to utilize the public comment forum as I did last night and we all can use 3 to 4 minutes each to speak on this. The board cannot ignore that if we are up front and present at their meeting.
I attended the Maricopa Community College District's board meeting on Tuesday night. Usually these meetings are fairly mundane, but I used the public speaking portion to introduce the idea of bringing community college wrestling back. For those who aren't aware, the district recently has dropped football as a sport from the 4 local colleges that offered it, citing that operational costs were too high. This is where wrestling fits in.
As best as I can tell, and this is going off of whatever information I can find, wrestling for the 4 community colleges would cost somewhere between 1/5 and 1/8 what football was costing, and not throwing off Title IX since wrestling takes up far less roster spots than football. There isn't equipment to maintain for wrestling, there isn't an expensive practice facility needed, and you don't need any specialized equipment.
Currently we have 2 college wrestling programs in this state, and between the two there are 14 Arizona kids on the rosters. There are 204 high school wrestling teams in this state, and even if we averaged only 10 kids per roster, that's still 2,040 wrestlers in this state. Offering community college wrestling would open up approximately 120 spots. That's less than 10% of wrestlers in this state.
The other measure that I believe would be an incentive to add wrestling would be not competing in the NJCAA, but rather the CCCAA. This would be done for 2 reasons. It would be much less costly, as the nearest NJCAA school is in Colorado. Wrestling in the CCCAA would also make it a one semester sport, which would be perfect for replacing football, and also cut down on travel costs. Both of those are reasons to consider when bringing wrestling back.
I only had 3 or 4 minutes to speak at the meeting tonight, but I have emailed my district board member, and am hopeful that I can get onto the meeting agenda next month to make a longer presentation with more information regarding geography and costs. Here is what we need now though. We need people to email the board members asking for wrestling to be brought back.
Mr. Laurin Hendrix, Board President: laurin.hendrix@domail.maricopa.edu
Ms. Johanna Haver, johanna.haver@domail.maricopa.edu
Ms. Tracy Livingston, tracy.livingston@domail.maricopa.edu
Ms. Jean McGrath, jean.mcgrath@domail.maricopa.edu
Mr. Dana Saar, dana.saar@domail.maricopa.edu
Dr. Linda Thor, linda.thor@domail.maricopa.edu
The other thing we need is a commitment to help out. I'm not talking about money, though money is good, but I am talking about trying to mitigate the startup costs. I am almost positive that the board or at least somebody on it will put it out there that the startup costs would be too much. This is where the wrestling community comes in. If there is a way to have schools donate old mats they don't use, need or want, or any other equipment that they don't need this would be very helpful. Instead of buying brand new mats for $20,000 why not use a donated or remaindered one from a high school. I would like nothing more than to see brand new mats outfitting community colleges, but we have to look at reality here. If it is going to be an obstacle to whether we get community college wrestling back or not, I don't think using donated equipment should be an obstacle. If we make it less costly up front to bring back wrestling, they can't say no to it very easily.
So if you email the board members, and you are willing to put in time, money, equipment, etc. please let them know and commit to it. If we show them that there is a strong wrestling community that wants this, they will have to listen to us and the financial numbers are on our side. There is no excuse for them to not add wrestling. Now we just have to show them how badly we want it.
If you would like to get in touch with me, just send me a PM on here or send me an email, JILevens@asu.edu and let's work on what we can get together for next month. If I am not included on next month's agenda, then what we can do is organize 10 or so people to utilize the public comment forum as I did last night and we all can use 3 to 4 minutes each to speak on this. The board cannot ignore that if we are up front and present at their meeting.